Monday, 28 April 2014

In 2005 a warped 'crucifix', made by the Jewish sculptor Enrico Job to celebrate a visit of John Paul II to Brescia, was erected outside the nearby village of Cevo.The warped 'crucifix', which bore an image of Christ in an overhanging position, rose from a base of sculpted metal flames and rose not upwards toward Heaven, but arched forward, falling down towards the ground, perhaps being symbolic of John Paul II's warped anthropocentric theology.On that occasion, John Paul II made ​​a speech in which he took for granted a future 'beatification' and 'canonisation' of Paul VI who presided over the man-centred - as opposed to God-centred - Second Vatican Council.The Cevo 'crucifix' from that day on became a symbol of the intention and determination of the Conciliar Church to 'canonise' Paul VI, whose 'beatification' is set for October 2014.On 24th April, 2014, just three days before the 'canonisations' of John XXIII and John Paul II, this horrific symbol that offends against the Redemption of Christ and the most sacred sign of the Faith lies broken and shattered.The warped 'crucifix' raised in honour of John Paul II, and 'dedicated' by him to Paul VI, snapped and came tumbling down killing a young man who lived on a street named, strangely enough, after John XXIII.

Saturday, 26 April 2014

In 1984 - the year, not the book! - John Paul II radically did away with the traditional processes that had hitherto been considered to help provide an infallible character to beatifications and canonisations of the Catholic Church.

Documenting his family life before his rise to the papacy, his ideas, his philosophy, his theology, his statements and his travels, Fr. Luigi Villa explains why Karol Wojtyla / John Paul II was not a fitting candidate for an alleged beatification - all the more relevant now that he is about to be 'canonised' for the Conciliar Church.

Friday, 25 April 2014

Dom Antonio de Castro Mayer, Bishop of Campos, Brazil, departed to God in his 87th year on April 25, 1991.

Born in 1904, Dom Antonio was from Campinhas in Sao Paulo. He studied theology at the Gregorian University in Rome, where he obtained a doctorate. Before becoming a bishop, as a priest of the Sao Paulo diocese, he successively and successfully filled the posts of professor in the Provincial Seminary of Sao Paulo, was canon of the cathedral, parish priest of St. Joseph of Belem in the eastern section of Sao Paulo, and finally that of Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Sao Paulo. He was, at the same time, General Counsellor of Catholic Action for the Archdiocese and, in that function, he wholeheartedly supported Catholic lay organisations in their efforts to check Communist activity.

In 1948 he was appointed and consecrated coadjutor bishop of Campos, assuming the direction of the diocese one year later. In the 1950's, Bishop de Castro Mayer published a lengthy and timely "Pastoral Letter on Problems of the Modern Apostolate," in which he attacked Modernism, whose ravages he already had foreseen. During the 1960's, Bishop de Castro Mayer fought against the Communists on the home front and against the Modernists in Rome. In 1964, Brazil was barely kept from falling into the Communist bloc - this due to devotion to Our Lady of Fatima and the regular recitation of the Rosary by large multitudes of the people. But the Brazilian episcopate was divided on the question of the Socialist reforms, which were the beginning of Communism. Many of them approved these reforms but Bishop de Castro Mayer, along with Archbishop Sigaud, led the minority of bishops opposed, thus playing a central role in the defeat of Communism in Brazil.

In Rome he was again associated with Archbishop Sigaud in the formation of the Coetus lnternationalis Patrum, an organization of traditional bishops to counter the Modernists' attempts to take over the Council. This organization founded by Archbishop Lefebvre and presided over by Archbishop Sigaud, amongst other things, had a petition signed by over 450 bishops asking for the condemnation of Communism. It was Bishop de Castro Mayer who presented this petition to the Council, although to no avail.

His association with Archbishop Lefebvre strengthened further in 1983 when they wrote a joint Open Letter to the Pope in which they publicly exposed the proliferation of errors within the post-conciliar Church that all of their private efforts had until then done nothing to stop. His understanding of the gravity of the crisis of faith in the Church was so profound that he was to be found at Archbishop Lefebvre's side on the occasion of the episcopal consecrations of 1988. His so crucial presence was, as he himself explained, "to accomplish my duty: to make a public Profession of Faith."

Soon after this historic event he began to lose his physical strength and eventually died of respiratory failure on April 25, 1991 (exactly one month after Archbishop Lefebvre). He was buried on the following day, at 4:00 p.m., in a chapel crypt of Our Lady of Carmel in Campos.

Declaration of Archbishop Lefebvre and

Bishop de Castro Mayer

2nd December 1986

“Rome has asked us if we have the intention of proclaiming our rupture with the Vatican on the occasion of the Congress of Assisi.

We think that the question should rather be the following: Do you believe and do you have the intention of proclaiming that the Congress of Assisi consummates the rupture of the Roman authorities with the Catholic Church?

For this is the question which preoccupies those who still remain Catholic.

Indeed, it is clear that since the Second Vatican Council, the Pope and the Bishops are making more and more of a clear departure from their predecessors.

Everything that had been put into place by the Church in past centuries to defend the Faith, and everything that was done by the missionaries to spread it, even to the point of martyrdom, henceforth is considered to be a fault which the Church must confess and ask pardon for….

The high point of this rupture with the previous Magisterium of the Church took place at Assisi, after the visit to the synagogue. The public sin against the One, true God, against the Incarnate Word, and His Church, makes us shudder with horror. John Paul II encourages the false religions to pray to their false gods—an immeasurable, unprecedented scandal.

We might recall here our Declaration of November 21, 1974, which remains more relevant than ever.

For us, remaining indefectibly attached to the Catholic and Roman Church of all times, we are obliged to take note that this Modernist and liberal religion of modern and conciliar Rome is still distancing itself more and more from us, who profess the Catholic Faith of the eleven Popes who condemned this false religion.

The rupture does not come from us, but from Paul VI and John Paul II who break with their predecessors.

This denial of the whole past of the Church by these two Popes and the bishops who imitate them is an inconceivable impiety and an intolerable humiliation for those who remain Catholic in fidelity to twenty centuries of the same Faith.

Thus we consider as null everything inspired by this spirit of denial of the past: all the post-conciliar reforms, and all the acts of Rome accomplished in this impiety.

We count on the grace of God and the support of the Virgin Most Faithful, all the martyrs, all the popes right up to the Council, and all the holy founders and foundresses of contemplative and missionary orders, to come to our aid in the renewal of the Church through an integral fidelity to Tradition”.

Thursday, 24 April 2014

In 1984 - the year, not the book! - John Paul II radically did away with the traditional processes that had hitherto been considered to help provide aninfallible character to beatifications and canonisations of the Catholic Church.

... if someone were to ask me if, in the final analysis, the Modernist corruption had hidden itself within the Council documents themselves, and if the Fathers themselves were more or less infected, I would have to respond ...

... not a few pages of the conciliar documents reek of the writings and ideas of Modernism...

... In all truth Modernism hid itself under the cloak of Vatican II’s hermeneutic...

... Anyone who, in quoting it, puts it on a par with Trent or Vatican I, and accredits to it a normative and binding force which it does not possess in itself, commits a crime...

... the purpose of Vatican II, in fact, sets it apart from any other Council, especially Trent and Vatican I. Its scope was not to give definitions, nor was it dogmatic or linked to dogma; it was pastoral. Thus based on its specific nature it was a pastoral Council.

Wednesday, 23 April 2014

The son of Christian parents, he served in the Roman Army under the Emperor Diocletian, rising through the ranks to become an officer in the Imperial Guard.Diocletian's second in command was Galerius, a supporter of the pagan religion, and when rumours spread that Christians were plotting his death an edict was issued which ordered the destruction of Christian churches, the burning of scriptures and the decree that everyone must recognise the divinity of the Emperor by throwing incense on a lamp beside his statue. St. George refused and went to the city of Nicomedia where he tore down the notice of the edict, publicly denounced the persecution and gave all his property to the poor. Although arrested and tortured, he refused to denounce his faith and was beheaded on 23 April, 303.St. George was buried in Lydda, where a rose bush was planted on his grave and a church built on the site.Remarkably, within a few years of his death, under the rule of Emperor Constantine, Christianity had become the official religion of the Roman Empire. Word of St. George's courage and sacrifice spread across Christendom and the tomb of "The Great Martyr", as it was known, became a place of pilgrimage with many visitors telling stories of the miracles they had witnessed.In 330 AD the Emperor dedicated a church to St. George in the new city of Constantinople and it is known that as early as 346 AD two other churches bore his name at Shaqqa and Ezria in Syria.Although the fame of St. George is often said to have reached England's shores through stories told by returning crusaders in the 11th and 12th centuries, there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that the cult of St. George existed long before then. In his book The Story of St George, Anthony Cooney makes the interesting observation that a Church Council was held at Lydda in 415 AD, a meeting that was sure to have been attended by clerics from Britain who would have spread the word about St. George on their return. It is certainly known that there was a church dedicated to St. George at Fordington in Dorset during the reign of Alfred the Great (871-899) and that King Canute (who reigned 1016-1035) founded a monastery at Thetford under his patronage.Many of the miracles associated with St. George were to do with people being healed of illnesses and injuries after offering up prayers to the soldier-saint, but it was the numerous accounts of how St. George appeared at critical moments in battles that enhanced his status as a great Christian defender. He was said to have helped the Normans beat the Saracens in Sicily in 1063 and on several occasions was seen by crusaders coming to their aid. At the siege of Antioch in 1098 his figure was glimpsed in the sky leading an army of knights, and at Jerusalem King Richard I, the Lionheart (1189-99), saw a vision of St. George with his red-cross banner. Richard took St. George as his own personal patron, placing himself and his army under the protection of the Christian martyr. This adoption by successive monarchs was tremendously important in the gradual evolution of St. George as patron saint of England.In 1222 during the reign of Henry III (1216-1272) the Council of Bishops at Oxford declared 23rd April to be St. George's Day, and in 1265 at the Battle of Evesham the red cross was carried as a military flag for the first time. Edward I (1272-1307) took this a step further by ordering that the Cross of St. George should be carried by the monarch, joining the banners of Edmund and Edward the Confessor, two other popular saints.It was Edward III (1327-1377) probably more than any other monarch, who promoted St. George most publicly and passionately.

In 1348 he founded the Order of the Garter, a brotherhood of chivalric knights dedicated to the Virgin Mary, Edward the Confessor and St. George, and built St George's Chapel at Windsor.

Edward's allegiance to the saint, whose help he had called upon, was strengthened by his victory at the siege of Callais in 1347, and in 1351 an official document declared: "The English nation call upon St. George as their special patron, particularly in war."In 1415, on the eve of Henry V's departure to Normandy to campaign in the Hundred Years War, all English people were ordered to attend church and to pray to St. George to watch over the king. Following Henry's magnificent victory at Agincourt, a spectacular pageant was held in London which included a statue of St. George; St. George's Day was elevated to "a greater double" feast day, and a new declaration restated the position that the saint was to be regarded as "the special patron and protector of the English nation". Subsequent rulers remained devoted to St. George and during Henry VIII's reign (1509-1547) the Cross of St. George was officially adopted as England's flag.St. George would certainly have become familiar to ordinary people through wall paintings, altarpieces and sculptures in many churches throughout England. One of the earliest of these was a carving above the door of the church at Fordington which shows the saint on horseback doing battle with enemy soldiers.In the centuries since the Middle Ages the flame of St. George, enduring symbol of courage, sacrifice and unquenchable Christian faith, has sometimes burned brightly and sometimes merely flickered, but it has never gone out. As well as England, he is the patron saint of Aragon, Barcelona, Bavaria, Georgia, Hungary, Lithuania, Malta and Portugal to name but a few. He is also the patron saint of farmers and scouting.

Tuesday, 22 April 2014

In 1984 - the year, not the book! - John Paul II radically did away with the traditional processes that had hitherto been considered to help provide an infallible character to beatifications and canonisations of the Catholic Church.

On Low Sunday, the Conciliar Church will attempt to 'canonise' itself and its Vatican II Revolution by 'canonising' John XXIII and John Paul II, two of its great architects and protectors.

As George Orwell could well have written using 'Newspeak' in his prophetic vision of 1984:

"To read these lines presenting the true face of John Paul II is a terrifying experience for the faithful Catholic, it fills the soul with sadness and dread.

Also, it raises serious problems of faith for any true Catholic; problems that often have no solution, although they explain the perplexity and confusion which are now troubling even those whose faith is strongest.

The pope is Peter, the rock on which Christ founded His Church. He is the one whose faith must not fail; who is to confirm his brethren, feed his sheep, feed the lambs. It is he who, assisted by the Holy Ghost has, for almost twenty centuries in this manner given the papacy a moral credibility unique in the history of the world.

Is it conceivable that, since the 1960's, the Apostolic See has been occupied by popes who have been the cause of the "auto-demolition of the Church" and are spreading within it "the smoke of Satan"? Leaving aside the pertinent question of what these popes are, we are certainly obliged to ask ourselves questions about what they do, and we can observe with alarm and amazement that they are introducing the Revolution of '89 into the Church, complete with its motto, its charter, which is fundamentally opposed to the principles of the Catholic Faith.

This book is very enlightening on the activities of John Paul II, a true follower of Paul VI.

We have the facts before our eyes which, enlightened by the immutable Catholic Faith, are now, with increasing sorrow and grief, seeing the Church threatened with complete ruin.

Echoing the popes before the 1960's, who foretold the disasters that would come upon the Church if their warnings were not listened to and their condemnations not heeded, and echoing the prophecies of Our Lady at La Salette and Fatima, let us strive to re-establish the Church upon the eternal principles taught by the Magisterium for nearly twenty centuries, rejecting the errors of the Liberal Modernist Revolution, even when these errors may be endorsed by those who occupy the See of Peter.

The Declaration we made on 21st November, 1974, after the first visit to Rome is still relevant, and we were obliged to reaffirm it after our second visit in 1987. We must reject Modernist Rome as it pursues its course of destroying the Faith and Christianity. It is our daily duty to repudiate it by attaching ourselves to the eternal Rome, proclaiming more than ever the need for the Reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Holy Mother, Mary our Queen.

To bring about the coming of this reign, we need bishops, we need priests and religious who have but one name on their lips, and one love in their hearts, that of Our Lord Jesus Christ".

Friday, 18 April 2014

Practical Meditations For Every Day in the Year on the Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ composed chiefly for the Use of Religious by a Father of the Society of Jesus. First translated from the French, 1868. Though primarily intended for Religious, the devout layman will find the Practical Meditations a most serviceable and bracing form of Spiritual Exercise amounting in fact to something like the daily practice of a Retreat.

Sixth Week of Lent: Holy Saturday

The Burial of Our Lord

1st Prelude. Be present in spirit at the descent from the cross and the burial of Jesus.

2nd Prelude. Ask for grace to pass this the last day of lent holily.

POINT I."And after these things [an hour after the death of our Lord], Joseph of Arimathea (because he was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, for fear of the Jews) besought Pilate that he might take away the Body of Jesus. And Pilate gave leave. He came therefore, and took away the Body of Jesus. And Nicodemus also came, he who at first came to Jesus by night, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds weight. They took therefore the Body of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloths, with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. Now there was, in the place where He was crucified, a garden, and in the garden a sepulchre, wherein no man had been laid. There, therefore, because of the parasceve of the Jews, they laid Jesus, because the sepulchre was nigh at hand."

CONSIDERATION. Behold the mournful scene at the foot of the cross: the crowd and the soldiers are already gone, the three Marys and the Apostle St. John are left alone; at length God sends two men to their help, two who before their conversion were weak and fearful, but whom grace has made bold and resolute; they mount the ladders, they remove the nails that pierce that sacred Body. Their hands unfasten Jesus and place Him in the arms of His Blessed Mother; it is they too, who aid this most sorrowful Mother to bind His sacred Body in linen cloths, with spices, and who place it at last in the glorious sepulchre of which Isaias has spoken in prophecy.

APPLICATION. Consider, here, how God acted towards His well-beloved Son; He who was formerly humiliated and abandoned is now honoured and cared for after death. So will God act towards us if we humbly and lovingly resign ourselves to His will in adversity.

AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS.

POINT II. "And the next day, which followed the day of preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees came together to Pilate, saying, Sir, we have remembered that that seducer said while He was yet alive, After three days I will rise again. Command, therefore, the sepulchre to be guarded until the third day, lest perhaps His disciples come and steal Him away, and say to the people, He is risen from the dead. So the last error shall be worse than the first. And Pilate said to them, You have a guard; go, guard it as you know. And they, departing, made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting guards".

CONSIDERATION. Admire the providence of God in all these circumstances -- in the new sepulchre, near where Our Lord was crucified, hewn out of a rock, as well as the sealing of the stone and placing a guard; the precautions taken by His enemies making it impossible even to approach Him in His grave. Our Lord permitted it, to place the truth of His resurrection beyond dispute -- a truth which is the basis of His Gospel.

APPLICATION. We believe in an ever-working Providence; far be it from us to look on events here below as chances or accidents; far from us that despondency which occasionally overpowers the most devoted servants of our Lord at beholding the temporary triumphs of impiety. It was when the disciples of Jesus thought all was lost that their Master overcame the grave and confounded His enemies for ever. Far from us also that melancholy which the sight of death or a funeral sometimes produces; let us conquer it by the consoling thought of the resurrection, from which we shall pass, as did our Lord, from death unto life eternal.

Practical Meditations For Every Day in the Year on the Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ composed chiefly for the Use of Religious by a Father of the Society of Jesus. First translated from the French, 1868. Though primarily intended for Religious, the devout layman will find the Practical Meditations a most serviceable and bracing form of Spiritual Exercise amounting in fact to something like the daily practice of a Retreat.

CONSIDERATION. Let us carefully meditate, one by one, on these last words of Our Lord, the same that the priest will use by our deathbed. "My Father"; what sweetness dwells in that word! How well fitted it is to soften the bitterness of death, and to give confidence in the last struggle! "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit." (Commend signifies rather, according to the Greek text, deposit, or place.) I commend or place my spirit into Thy hands, into the hands which created it, which gave it to me, for a time united to a mortal body, to glorify Thee on Earth; now death separates it from its lifelong companion, till the moment of the resurrection, and till then I commend it into Thy fatherly hands.

APPLICATION. Try often to make use of this last word of Our Lord, particularly before sleep, the likeness of death; that at the hour of death it may be in your heart, and so spring naturally to your lips. As you utter it, unite your thoughts and affections to those of Jesus Christ, who in commending His soul to His Father, as St. Athanasius says, commended to God also the souls of all mankind.

AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS.

POINT II."And saying this, He gave up the ghost."

CONSIDERATION. Thus dies Jesus, our loving Saviour, at the precise moment He willed to die, without suffering the agony He had previously endured in the Garden of Gethsemani. He dies abandoned and calumniated, but His death is followed by an immediate testimony to both His innocence and His divinity by the centurion at the foot of the cross exclaiming at the sight, "Indeed this was a just man; indeed this man was the Son of God!" Jesus is dead! But He has overcome death, and opened to us the gates of everlasting life. He is dead; but from His Heart, pierced by the lance, flows the life-giving Sacraments of His spouse the Church, which is to bring forth till the end of time an innumerable multitude of children throughout the world. He is dead, His body remains nailed to the cross; but His soul enjoys the Beatific vision, and has received the adoration of the inhabitants of limbo.

APPLICATION. O Body and Soul of Jesus, that have suffered so much for me, what can I do in return? I adore and bless you, and, recalling the words of the Apostle, that Christ dies for all, that they also who live may not live to themselves, but unto Him who died for them, I will endeavour, O my Jesus, to die more and more to myself, to the world, and to all that displeases Thee.

AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS.

POINT III. "And bowing His head, He gave up the ghost."

CONSIDERATION. Contemplate the inanimate Body of our loving Redeemer. Those eyes, that have shed so many tears of tenderness and compassion over sinners; that mouth, which never opened but to glorify God or to comfort man; those pierced hands, ever ready to aid and bless; those wounded feet, moving only by obedience, never weary of seeking His lost sheep. Oh, what glory in Heaven will surround all those bodily powers used here below for the glory of God and the salvation of souls!

Thursday, 17 April 2014

Practical Meditations For Every Day in the Year on the Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ composed chiefly for the Use of Religious by a Father of the Society of Jesus. First translated from the French, 1868. Though primarily intended for Religious, the devout layman will find the Practical Meditations a most serviceable and bracing form of Spiritual Exercise amounting in fact to something like the daily practice of a Retreat.

2nd Prelude. Ask that you may be able to say the same words at the hour of your own death.

POINT I. When Jesus therefore had taken the vinegar, He said, "It is consummated".

CONSIDERATION. Consider how truly Our Lord at the end of His earthly life could say, 'It is consummated; all that I owed to God My Father in reparation of His glory; all that I owed to man, whose salvation is accomplished; all My labours, sufferings, and humiliations': to use His own words, "I have glorified Thee on the Earth, I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do."

APPLICATION. How happy the religious who on his deathbed can say that he has faithfully accomplished all that God, his neighbour, and his holy vocation required of him; who since his entrance into religion has made God, the salvation of souls, and his own perfection his only aims; who has observed his rule, satisfied his superiors, and edified his community in spite of difficulties, sacrifices and humiliations! Truly can he also say, 2It is consummated; I am happy, I die content and full of hope'. Can you speak thus? Look back on the past; death is the echo of life.

AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS.

POINT II."It is consummated."

CONSIDERATION. The sense of these words is best completed by those which Jesus had uttered some hours before: "And now I am not in the world, and these (His disciples) are in the world, and I come to Thee." As if He would say 'All is consummated; nothing now keeps Me in the world; I leave it willingly'. Those who have no attachment to the world do not regret leaving it. The Heart of Jesus had no attachment except for men: He had come into the world to save them, He loved them ardently, and now death is about to separate Him from them! How, then, could He leave them without regret? By a prodigy of ineffable love He instituted at the Last Supper the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, and after dying for us, deigns, by means of this same Sacrament, to remain perpetually with us.

APPLICATION. It was on Holy Thursday that the institution of this wonderful Sacrament took place; the Church solemnly celebrates it not only in her office, in the Gospel and prayers of the Mass, but in her ceremonial, which is peculiar to this day. In cathedrals the bishop, in communities the abbot or superior, alone offers up the Holy Sacrifice; the other priests receiving communion from his hand, after the example of the Apostles communicated by Jesus Christ.

AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS.

POINT III."It is consummated."

CONSIDERATION. There is no doubt that Our Lord, in giving utterance to these words, had in His mind the great act of the night before, when He celebrated the Pasch with His Apostles. He had substituted, in place of the sacrifices of the old law and of the Paschal law, the sacrifice of Himself, which will last to the end of time. He had said, "With desire have I desired to eat this Pasch with you".

APPLICATION. This, then, is the festival of the Christian Pasch; let us rejoice at commemorating it at the same time as the Apostles, and prepare ourselves with suitable dispositions, renewing our acts of faith, hope, confidence, and desire.

Wednesday, 16 April 2014

Practical Meditations For Every Day in the Year on the Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ composed chiefly for the Use of Religious by a Father of the Society of Jesus. First translated from the French, 1868. Though primarily intended for Religious, the devout layman will find the Practical Meditations a most serviceable and bracing form of Spiritual Exercise amounting in fact to something like the daily practice of a Retreat.

Sixth Week of Lent: Wednesday

Fourth and Fifth Words on the Cross

1st Prelude. Imagine you see Jesus on the cross in the midst of the darkness that overspread the Earth at noon-day.

2nd Prelude. Ask for the grace of love and compunction.

POINT I."Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over the whole Earth until the ninth hour."

CONSIDERATION. This miraculous darkness, mentioned even by contemporary pagan writers, lasted nearly three hours, all nature seeming to mourn its Maker. But the Jews remained unconvinced by this prodigy, as well as by the other extraordinary circumstances attendant on or subsequent to the death of the Messiah, although they had been distinctly foretold by their prophets.

APPLICATION. St. Gregory the Great makes striking reflections upon this excessive blindness. "All the elements," he says, "gave their testimony to their Creator's advent: His birth was announced by a star; the sea became firm beneath His footsteps; the sun grew dark, the earth trembled, and the rocks were rent at His death, whilst those that were in Limbo returned once more to Earth; yet still the Jews, harder than the very rocks, remained obstinate in their unbelief." Alas that there should be Christians who eyes are blinded and their hearts hardened by sin no less deplorably than the Jews!

CONSIDERATION. These are the words of King David, who in the 21st Psalm, nine centuries before, speaks of the Passion rather as an historian than a prophet. Our Lord used them at this solemn moment to afford the Jews another proof that He was the Messiah predicted by the prophets, and as a proof to us of succeeding generations that His divinity in no degree alleviated the bitterness of His agony.

APPLICATION."My God, My God, why has Thou forsaken Me?" This plaintive cry of a Son abandoned, it is true, but perfectly resigned to His Father's will, teaches us that His faithful followers must know how to support the withdrawal of sensible consolation, even when we are most earnestly promoting His glory; and also that in these moments of darkness we are not forbidden to cry aloud to our hidden Father, provided our will is entirely in conformity with His good pleasure.

AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS

POINT III."Afterwards Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, I thirst."

CONSIDERATION. Our Lord had told the Jews that all that had been uttered by the prophets respecting the Messiah should be exactly accomplished in Him. Thus King David had said in the 28th verse of the 68th Psalm, "In my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." Our Lord accordingly said, "I thirst," knowing that the soldiers would offer Him this bitter beverage. Immediately one of them took a sponge and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed and gave it to Him to drink.

APPLICATION. After having considered the perfect exactness and heroic fidelity with which Our Lord carried out to His last sigh the smallest details regarding Himself of which the prophets had spoken, what ought you to think of your want of care in your daily duties, your infractions of the rule, on the pretext that they are matters of little moment?

Tuesday, 15 April 2014

Practical Meditations For Every Day in the Year on the Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ composed chiefly for the Use of Religious by a Father of the Society of Jesus. First translated from the French, 1868. Though primarily intended for Religious, the devout layman will find the Practical Meditations a most serviceable and bracing form of Spiritual Exercise amounting in fact to something like the daily practice of a Retreat.

Sixth Week of Lent: Tuesday

Third Word on the Cross: "Behold thy Mother!"

1st Prelude. Look at Our Lady and St. John at the foot of the cross.

2nd Prelude. Ask for an increase of love for Jesus and Mary.

POINT I."Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His Mother."

CONSIDERATION. His Mother stood by the cross. Here we must pause and consider two admirable and apparently incompatible things: Our Lady's extraordinary grief, and her heroic courage. It is difficult to conceive how she, the most loving of mothers, could behold her Son nailed alive to the cross, and suffering a three hours' agony, and remain standing beneath it. Many painters, it is true, have depicted her fainting and overwhelmed at its foot, but without any Scriptural warrant. St. John says explicitly she stood; and the Fathers agree that, standing thus, though, according to the prophecy of Simeon, her whole soul was pierced through as by a sword, she united herself to the sacrifice of her Divine Son.

APPLICATION. This supernatural strength was certainly the effect of a miracle of grace; but was no less also the fruit of her fidelity under all the trials which her faith and constancy had before suffered. God gives His graces in proportion to our correspondence with them. Let us also be generous and steadfast under our more ordinary trials, and we shall be strengthened under greater ones. Look back on your past life, and you will be convinced of this truth.

AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS.

POINT II."When Jesus therefore had seen His Mother and the disciple standing whom He loved, he saith to His Mother, Woman, behold thy son."

CONSIDERATION. Admire the calmness of Jesus, who forgets Himself in the midst of His agony, to recommend her to the care of his virgin disciple, who was henceforth to sustain and console her to the end of her life. "Woman, behold thy son!" And at that moment He filled the heart of the beloved St. John full to overflowing with the tenderest and most generous love that ever son felt for this admirable Mother.

APPLICATION. Here our Lord teaches us to rise above our own sorrows, or rather to put them aside and forget ourselves for others. In giving His Mother merely the name of Woman, he would have us understand the less we act by the impulse of merely natural affection, the more we may rely upon His power to supply our needs and upon the protection of the Mother He has given us.

AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS.

POINT III."After that, He saith to the disciple, Son, behold thy Mother."

CONSIDERATION. Our Lord, having cared for His afflicted Mother, bethought Him of His beloved disciple, and wishing to give him a last mark of His love, places Our Lady from henceforth under his protection. "Behold thy Mother" are the words with which He turns His dying eyes on St. John; words full of consolation for us all, for the Fathers unanimously concur in believing that our Lord here used St. John as the representative of all the faithful, and that from this moment He filled the heart of Mary with an overflowing love for mankind, so that her Maternity became, in a certain degree, as unlimited as the Divine Paternity itself.

APPLICATION and COLLOQUY of love, devotion, and confidence in our Blessed Mother.

Monday, 14 April 2014

Practical Meditations For Every Day in the Year on the Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ composed chiefly for the Use of Religious by a Father of the Society of Jesus. First translated from the French, 1868. Though primarily intended for Religious, the devout layman will find the Practical Meditations a most serviceable and bracing form of Spiritual Exercise amounting in fact to something like the daily practice of a Retreat.

Sixth Week of Lent: Monday

Motives for Penance drawn from the Thought of Hell.

1st Prelude. Imagine a lost soul asking for an hour in which to do penance.

2nd Prelude. Ask for the grace to do penance, moved by the consideration of eternal reprobation.

POINT I. We have deserved Hell.

CONSIDERATION. I have merited Hell -- first motive. Adam, by his disobedience, drew down upon himself the sentence of everlasting condemnation. God, it is true, gave him certain hope of escaping it when he foretold the advent of a Redeemer; but on the condition that he should do penance all the days of his life. "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread", was the command. With what gratitude did Adam receive this gracious commutation of his punishment, long and severe as it was! So in modern days, criminals condemned to death have sometimes their penalty altered to servitude for life.

APPLICATION. If you have committed one mortal sin, you ought to say to yourself, "I have merited Hell, as did also our first father, Adam; and if I am to escape it is also on the condition of leading a life of penance." Thus the Council of Trent, speaking in general terms, says: "All the life of a Christian should be a life of penance." How much more true is this, if you have sinned yourself, even though it be but once! Besides, if you go down to hell in spirit, and behold the punishments which the lost endure, and which last to all eternity, suffering in this life will seem light, and you will say, with St. Augustine, "Here below, O Lord, burn, cut, and spare me not, so long as Thou sparest me in eternity!"

AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS.

POINT II. The fear of Hell.

CONSIDERATION. Hell threatens me -- second motive. The words of Our Lord are explicit: "Except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish." How is this? Because pride and concupiscence, which since the Fall have infected our mind and heart, rule our actions, and will infallibly lead us into every species of sin and disorder, without the practice of constant penance and mortifications. The history of religious orders proves this. Humiliation is the penance of the intellect; and how many, in rejecting it, have become apostates before God, if not before man! Mortification is the penance of the heart; and how many, unwilling to endure it, who have begun in the spirit, afterwards indulge the desires of the flesh, as the Apostle St. Paul tells us! Think of those amongst them who you have known. Think of the dangers that you yourself have run.

APPLICATION. The Church does well to exhort us tenderly to penance from the first Sunday in Lent. Let us embrace it willingly. This is Holy Week. We should strive, therefore, to do more than we have yet done.

AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS.

POINT III. Others are lost.

CONSIDERATION. Beings more perfect than myself are eternally lost -- third motive. The angels have fallen in Heaven, and from Heaven they were cast into Hell. Faith assures us so. They had no time for penance; immediate punishment followed their offence - another and no less terrible truth. The renegade Judas had been called and formed by our Lord himself to the practice of religious perfection and the apostolic functions. He spent three years with Jesus, and there secretly fostering an evil inclination, he at length became capable of conceiving and executing the most detestable of crimes, which led him to despair, suicide and Hell.

APPLICATION."Wherefore, he that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed, lest he fall"; repressing every evil inclination by continual mortification. Such is the practical conclusion of the Apostle St. Paul: "But I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway." Let us reason as did St. Paul; let us act as he did, and we shall be saved with him.

Sunday, 13 April 2014

Practical Meditations For Every Day in the Year on the Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ composed chiefly for the Use of Religious by a Father of the Society of Jesus. First translated from the French, 1868. Though primarily intended for Religious, the devout layman will find the Practical Meditations a most serviceable and bracing form of Spiritual Exercise amounting in fact to something like the daily practice of a Retreat.

Sixth Week of Lent: Palm Sunday

Jesus on the Cross, abandoned, stripped and blasphemed

1st Prelude. Behold Jesus, so short a time since triumphantly received, abandoned and blasphemed.

2nd Prelude. Ask for the grace to detach yourself from the world, that you may attach yourself to God alone.

POINT I."And all His acquaintance.... stood afar off, beholding these things."

CONSIDERATION. All the ceremonies of Palm Sunday, the blessing of the palms, the procession, the chanted hosannas, are instituted by the Church to recall the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem on that day. What a contrast, at only six days' interval, between the honours then rendered to Our Lord and the affronts and blasphemies that greet Him now! Then, a great multitude that was come to the festival, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem took branches of palm-trees and went forth to meet Him; and now He is condemned to death, He is left alone, abandoned by His friends, who stand afar off beholding Him!

APPLICATION. Let us learn from this not to count upon the help or consolation of our friends, particularly in times of misfortune or persecution; and to bear the want of sympathy even from our brethren and superiors, content to have God alone for the witness of our sorrows and sufferings. Happy is the religious who has early learnt this lesson; he is never heard to complain of neglect or want of consideration on the part of others. Jesus abandoned on the cross is sufficient for him.

AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTION.

POINT II."The soldiers, therefore, when they had crucified Him, took His garments, and they made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also His coat."

CONSIDERATION. Six days before, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, not satisfied with welcoming Our Lord in triumphal procession, spread their garments in His way, and strewed them before Him. And how do they treat Him now? They strip Him of His garments and divide them before His eyes into four parts!

APPLICATION. Jesus, thus deprived of all things, even of those considered absolutely necessary to existence, teaches us the nothingness of those earthly possessions which worldly men seek so eagerly, often to their soul's cost. Jesus suffers Himself to be thus despoiled with perfect calmness; for He is detached from everything below. Let us thank Him for having called us to the profession of holy poverty, the source of our peace, security and happiness.

AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS.

POINT III."And they that passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads, and saying,.... If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross. In like manner also the chief priests, with the scribes and the ancients."

CONSIDERATION. Another contrast, not less striking than the preceding ones. Six days ago the multitude that formed the procession from Bethphage to Jerusalem were crying with one voice, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He Who cometh in the name of the Lord, hosanna in the highest!" and now this same multitude, after having denied the Messiah they so lately had received in triumph, mock and blaspheme Him even in the very agonies of death!

APPLICATION. To-day they cry Hosanna, they reverence and applaud Him; to-morrow it is, Crucify Him! and He is forgotten, disdained and despised. Such is the history of earthly greatness; what folly, therefore, if in the exercise of your sacred ministry, or in any other work, you seek for notice, fame, or applause! In doing so, not only will you lose all merit in the sight of God, but you will lose likewise the esteem of men, who detest vanity, particularly in a religious.

Saturday, 12 April 2014

Practical Meditations For Every Day in the Year on the Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ composed chiefly for the Use of Religious by a Father of the Society of Jesus. First translated from the French, 1868. Though primarily intended for Religious, the devout layman will find the Practical Meditations a most serviceable and bracing form of Spiritual Exercise amounting in fact to something like the daily practice of a Retreat.

Fifth Week of Lent: Saturday

The penitent Thief -- The second Word on the Cross

1st Prelude. Behold Jesus, crucified between two thieves.

2nd Prelude. Ask for great docility in following the inspirations of grace.

POINT I."And one of those robbers who were hanged blasphemed Him saying, If Thou be Christ, save Thyself and us. But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, Neither dost thou fear God, seeing thou art under the same condemnation."

CONSIDERATION. The striking contrast between the two thieves offers at once a mystery and a lesson. The mystery is this, that both these thieves witness the superhuman charity and patience of our Lord, who hangs between them, praying and suffering for both of them alike; but, nevertheless, the one remains an impious blasphemer to the end, and dies impenitent; whilst the other, docile to the first movements of grace, opens his eyes and heart to the truth, and dies the death of the predestinate, baptized, as St. Cyrian says, in his own blood. The Church calls upon the faithful to venerate him, under the name of Dismas, on the 25th of March.

APPLICATION. The practical lesson to be derived from the above mystery is, that God gives each man grace sufficient for his salvation, although He gives more largely to some than to others. But He also requires His creatures' co-operation; thus, however great the graces bestowed on the good thief, he would not have been either converted or saved without his correspondence with these graces. And it follows that we religious, who have received extraordinary graces, must not look upon our salvation as therefore secured. What alone can give us a moral assurance of salvation is a faithful correspondence to each successively given grace.

AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS.

POINT II."And we indeed [suffer] justly, for we receive the due reward of our evil deeds; but this Man hath done no evil. And he said to Jesus, Lord, remember me when Thou shalt come into Thy kingdom."

CONSIDERATION. We go straight to God, and ensure not only His forgiveness, but draw down upon us still greater favours, when, like the penitent thief, we acknowledge our misdeeds and accept our punishment with contrition and resignation, joining humble and confident prayer to our submissive confession. The good confession of the divinity of Our Lord, which was then, as it were, annihilated, made by the penitent thief, shows us that, besides his justification, he received the gift of faith in an eminent degree.

APPLICATION. We are all weak; you have often considerable faults of which your conscience accuses you. Do you imitate the penitent thief? Do you not try to deceive yourself respecting them, or to hide or deny them before others? And with what sort of grace do you receive the correction they require?

AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS.

POINT III."And Jesus said to him, Amen, I say to thee, This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise."

CONSIDERATION. What consoling and encouraging words for the penitent thief in his last hour, surrounded by everything that renders death terrible and induces despair -- agonizing pain, the remembrance of the past, the dread of the future! How great the power of one single fervent prayer! Here it changes a hardened sinner into a saint. He only asked Our Lord to remember him; and Our Lord gave him, with the remission of all his sins, the promise of a happy death, to be followed by bliss eternal.

APPLICATION. How wrong, therefore, to distrust the love of God, or the efficacy of prayer! However guilty or miserable we may be, or have been, prayer contains a virtue in itself, apart from the holiness of the man who offers it; and the more wretched our case, the more we should have confidence in its being answered. "That is very encouraging; but sometimes," you say, "I feel as if I could not pray in the least"; then make use only of the prayer of the penitent thief, "Lord, remember me" so poor, so miserable; never shall we do so in vain.

Friday, 11 April 2014

Practical Meditations For Every Day in the Year on the Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ composed chiefly for the Use of Religious by a Father of the Society of Jesus. First translated from the French, 1868. Though primarily intended for Religious, the devout layman will find the Practical Meditations a most serviceable and bracing form of Spiritual Exercise amounting in fact to something like the daily practice of a Retreat.

Fifth Week of Lent: Friday

Feast of the Dolours of our Blessed Lady

1st Prelude. Imagine you see Our Blessed Lady standing at the foot of the cross.

2nd Prelude. Ask the grace of tender compassion towards our dearest Mother in her bitter sorrow, and to understand how much, in what manner, and wherefore she suffered.

POINT I. How much she suffers.

CONSIDERATION. Let us enter into the spirit of the Church this day, and fix, as She does, our thoughts exclusively upon our Lady's sufferings; she suffers on our account and for us. To understand in some measure how much she suffers, we must conceive the idea of a mother, the tenderest of mothers, who loves nothing so much as her son, her only son; this Son, the greatest of the children of men, she is forced to see die in the prime of His days, by no natural death, but by the hand of the executioner, surrounded by an angry mob, nailed living on a cross, after having been covered with wounds from head to foot, crowned with thorns; to behold Him struggling with death for three long hours, without being able in the least to assuage His agony! Did ever mother suffer such a martyrdom? But what passes our comprehension is, that we may truly say that she endured this martyrdom for thirty-three years, knowing, to the smallest particular, all that awaited her from the hour of Simeon's prophecy. Well does the Church style her Queen of Martyrs, and apply to her the words of the Psalmist, "My life is wasted with grief, and my years in sighs."

APPLICATION. Let us think of this when thus gazing on the picture of our Lady at the foot of the cross, and we shall find our hearts filled with love, compassion, and childlike devotion; we shall account our sufferings but trifles, and gain courage to bear or surmount them.

AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS.

POINT 2. In what manner she suffers.

CONSIDERATION. How did our Lady endure so many and so great sufferings? 1st, with perfect resignation and without a word of complaint; 2ndly, with admirable conformity to all the designs of Almighty God in the cruel and ignominious death of her Son; 3rdly, with generosity apparently impossible in a mother; 4thly, with constancy beyond heroism, standing beneath the cross till Jesus breathed His last sigh; lastly, with invincible sweetness and charity, joining her Divine Son in praying for His murderers.

APPLICATION. Mary is here the Queen and pattern of martyrs; see how far you are conformed to her example in the slight sufferings you endure.

AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS.

POINT III. Wherefore she suffers.

CONSIDERATION. Wherefore did God will that Our Lady's whole life should be passed in suffering, who had nothing to expiate like the rest of mankind? The Fathers of the Church reply that, to merit the title of Queen of Saints, she was obliged to surpass them all in her resemblance to her Son, so pre-eminently the Man of Sorrows; in love to God, which is proved by suffering for Him; in merit, which is gained also by suffering; and in sacrifice, for the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls.

APPLICATION. If God, wishing to bestow a mark of His peculiar love upon our Lady, could not find anything more precious than the cross, ought we to consider ourselves miserable when He gives us a share in it also, even should He decree that we carry it to the end? If so, He only treats us as He did her whom He loved best; let that thought console us, and let us carry our cross willingly after our dearest Mother.

Thursday, 10 April 2014

Practical Meditations For Every Day in the Year on the Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ composed chiefly for the Use of Religious by a Father of the Society of Jesus. First translated from the French, 1868. Though primarily intended for Religious, the devout layman will find the Practical Meditations a most serviceable and bracing form of Spiritual Exercise amounting in fact to something like the daily practice of a Retreat.

Fifth Week of Lent: Thursday

First Word of Jesus on the Cross

1st Prelude. Imagine you see Jesus raised on the cross, and hear Him say, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

2nd Prelude. Ask for a spirit of gentleness and charity.

POINT I."Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

CONSIDERATION. The blood of Abel cried to Heaven for vengeance, and the vengeance of Heaven fell without delay upon Cain and his descendants. The crime of the Jews who nailed their Messiah, the Holy of holies, on the cross was infinitely greater. Yet at His last hour, instead of asking His Heavenly Father to manifest His justice by confounding His enemies and establishing His innocence, the first words of Jesus were, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." What an example of gentleness and charity!

APPLICATION. Jesus is your model, whom you have promised so often to follow, especially in His gentleness and charity. But examine how you have done so. Jesus, innocence itself, so horribly treated, prays for His murderers, and even excuses their guilt, whilst you, perhaps, nourish feelings of bitterness and revenge against those who have wronged you but very slightly, over-estimating their offense, or attributing to them intentions which they may never have entertained.

AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS.

POINT II."And Pilate wrote a title also, and he put it upon the cross; and the writing was Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, in letters in Greek, Latin and Hebrew."

CONSIDERATION. Pilate's motive in placing this apparently honourable inscription above the cross, in the three then best known languages, was to mortify the Jews, who had compelled him to condemn Our Lord unjustly; but at the same time he unconsciously fulfilled the words of Jesus, "He that humbleth himself shall be exalted," as well as the prophecy that the Gospel should be made known to Hebrews, Greeks and Romans, and from them should spread into every country, and be proclaimed in every tongue.

APPLICATION. Remark here the admirable providence of God, and how He obtains His ends in spite, and even by means, of the perversity of man; this we see every day, and therefore why shouldst thou, O devout soul, be so fearful and mistrustful in His service? Let us repose upon His providence, and no-one can harm us; in the words of the Apostle, we know that "to them that love God all things work together unto good."

AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS.

POINT III."Then the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but that He said, I am King of the Jews. Pilate answered, What I have written, I have written."

CONSIDERATION. The inscription Pilate ordered to be placed above the cross wounded the pride of the chief priests, who came in a body to the governor requesting him to change it; but Pilate, so weak and timid before, was firm now, and only replied to their imperious demand, "What I have written, I have written."

APPLICATION. Here Pilate, although a heathen, gives us a lesson; he teaches us not to change our resolutions lightly, particularly those we have formed in retreats, but to adhere to them at whatever cost. So that under any pretext whatever -- and pretexts are rarely ever wanting to those tempted to abandon their resolutions -- let us stand firm and say, "What I have written under the inspiration of grace, when God spoke to my heart, is to remain unaltered, and I will not depart from it."